ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2017
Raising Awareness About Cervical Cancer Using Twitter: Content Analysis of the 2015 #SmearForSmear Campaign.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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30 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A Model of Social Media Effects in Public Health Communication Campaigns: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Pooled it
- The Impact and Applications of Social Media Platforms for Public Health Responses Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Literature Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- Are social networks effective in promoting healthy behaviors? A systematic review of evaluations of public health campaigns broadcast on Twitter.Frontiers in public health · 2022Pooled it
- Health-related social media engagement and cervical cancer prevention: associations with HPV knowledge, vaccine awareness, and pap smear utilization among US women.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Themes, perspectives, and educational quality of content related to #PapSmears on TikTok.Gynecologic oncology reports · 2025Article
- A Content Analysis of #Childhoodcancer Chatter on X.Journal of adolescent and young adult oncology · 2025Article
- Using Social Media Platforms to Raise Health Awareness and Increase Health Education in Pakistan: Structural Equation Modeling Analysis and Questionnaire Study.JMIR human factors · 2025Article
- Seeing red..? Co-design of a culturally tailored uterine cancer awareness intervention for Asian and Black ethnic minority groups.Gynecologic oncology reports · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Public Health Communication on X (Formerly Twitter): Cross-Sectional Study of Message Type, Sentiment, and Source.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Characterizing Anti-Vaping Posts for Effective Communication on Instagram Using Multimodal Deep Learning.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2024Article
- Perspectives and Experiences of Patients With Thyroid Cancer at a Global Level: Retrospective Descriptive Study of Twitter Data.JMIR cancer · 2023Article
- The #VaccinesWork Hashtag on Twitter in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Network Analysis.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2022Article
- How Portuguese Health Entities Used Social Media to Face the Public Health Emergency during COVID-19 Disease.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Cancer awareness & its association with demographic variables & mobile phone usage among the rural population of a district in north India.The Indian journal of medical research · 2022Article
- A cross-sectional study of exposure across social media platforms for the British Orthodontic Society retention awareness campaign: #HoldthatSmile.Journal of orthodontics · 2022Article
- Impact of cancer awareness campaigns in Peru: a 5-year Google Trends analysis.Ecancermedicalscience · 2022Article
- Article
- General Audience Engagement With Antismoking Public Health Messages Across Multiple Social Media Sites: Comparative Analysis.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2021Article
- A survey of 20-year-old Japanese women: how is their intention to undergo cervical cancer screening associated with their childhood HPV vaccination status?Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2021Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women under 45 years of age. To deal with the decrease of smear test coverage in the United Kingdom, a Twitter campaign called #SmearForSmear has been launched in 2015 for the European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week. Its aim was to encourage women to take a selfie showing their lipstick going over the edge and post it on Twitter with a raising awareness message promoting cervical cancer screening. The estimated audience was 500 million people. Other public health campaigns have been launched on social media such as Movember to encourage participation and self-engagement. Their result was unsatisfactory as their aim had been diluted to become mainly a social buzz.
objectiveThe objectives of this study were to identify the tweets delivering a raising awareness message promoting cervical cancer screening (sensitizing tweets) and to understand the characteristics of Twitter users posting about this campaign.
methodsWe conducted a 3-step content analysis of the English tweets tagged #SmearForSmear posted on Twitter for the 2015 European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week. Data were collected using the Twitter application programming interface. Their extraction was based on an analysis grid generated by 2 independent researchers using a thematic analysis, validated by a strong Cohen kappa coefficient. A total of 7 themes were coded for sensitizing tweets and 14 for Twitter users' status. Verbatims were thematically and then statistically analyzed.
resultsA total of 3019 tweets were collected and 1881 were analyzed. Moreover, 69.96% of tweets had been posted by people living in the United Kingdom. A total of 57.36% of users were women, and sex was unknown in 35.99% of cases. In addition, 54.44% of the users had posted at least one selfie with smeared lipstick. Furthermore, 32.32% of tweets were sensitizing. Independent factors associated with posting sensitizing tweets were women who experienced an abnormal smear test (OR [odds ratio] 13.456, 95% CI 3.101-58.378, P<.001), female gender (OR 3.752, 95% CI 2.133-6.598, P<.001), and people who live in the United Kingdom (OR 2.097, 95% CI 1.447-3.038, P<.001). Nonsensitizing tweets were statistically more posted by a nonhealth or nonmedia company (OR 0.558, 95% CI 0.383-0.814, P<.001).
conclusionsThis study demonstrates that the success of a public health campaign using a social media platform depends on its ability to get its targets involved. It also suggests the need to use social marketing to help its dissemination. The clinical impact of this Twitter campaign to increase cervical cancer screening is yet to be evaluated.
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